As is well known, a variety of hangers, shelves, shelving, racks and other such merchandise supports, herein referred to as merchandisers or merchandiser units, are used to support and usually display merchandise for convenient viewing and access by customers. Retailers are one type of entity that typically use such merchandiser units. A label support is often provided on each merchandiser unit for supporting and prominently exhibiting a label that may contain pricing, bar codes, stock keeping units and other information and indicia pertaining to the merchandise on the merchandiser unit.
In such merchandiser units, it is desirable to permit the ready application, removal and exchange of information labels, e.g. such as in instances of changing of the products, prices, sales announcements, images which facilitate inventorying, and other pertinent information.
In this regard, Southern Imperial, Inc., the present assignee to this patent application, has obtained several patents including U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,385,884, 6,385,885, and 6,519,885 directed toward display panels that have a release coating such as silicone for ready attachment, removal and replacement of adhesive labels. Such adhesive labels typically have a permanent type adhesive which when applied to typical metal or plastic surfaces causes excessive residue (e.g. sticky adhesive and/or face stock material) to be left behind. This requires an intense cleaning effort in order to fully remove the labels and/or residue left behind. This foregoing invention which has been commercially employed under the trademark LABEL RELEASE® has proved to be beneficial in many applications and has enjoyed commercial success.
Although this technology has been significant innovation in the art, there are applications where non-adhesive labels are used. For example, there are extruded plastic label holders for peg hooks and/or shelf channels which generally include two planar transparent plastic panels connected at the bottom and which define a generally planar pocket therebetween. These label holders receive a non-adhesive label such as a paper tag or paper card, in which the bottom of the label holder typically supports the gravitational weight of the label (sometimes a clamping action facilitated by an integral hinge in the plastic label holder may also provide for retention). Examples of such label holders, commonly referred to as extruded plastic label holders are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,581,314, 6,470,613, D470,535, D472,278, D475,753, and D470,893, all assigned to Southern Imperial, Inc., and all of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
One problem as it generally relates to extruded plastic label holders is that non-adhesive labels sometimes tend to migrate or wander out of position once installed into the intended pocket. This can occur due to customers pulling merchandise off the merchandiser units, which generates vibrations and the like, which in turn can cause a non-adhesive label to migrate out of position over time. This can be particularly problematic when the merchandiser unit is not perfectly level in the horizontal plane, which allows vibrations and the like to cause the labels to migrate out of position and downhill over time. In terms of retail stores, this can be significant problem in that customers may not be properly informed of pricing information and may not purchase an item based on the lack of information or due to the frustration in locating information. Further if excessive label migration occurs, the wrong product could end up being labeled with the wrong price information. In some states, there are laws that require retailers to sell at the listed price. Therefore, if the listed price is wrong due to label migration, this can be an added cost to a retailer.
The label migration problem is also applicable to C-channel shelving units in which non-adhesive labels are snapped in to the C-channel at the front end of a shelving unit.
Accordingly, there has existed a problem which is in need of a suitable solution.